If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

The Muscle and Brawn Forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Muscle and Brawn community stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

Introduce YourselfIntroduce Yourself to the Muscle and Brawn Community

I began training seriously in college in 1986. I attended New Mexico Tech, and they had a nice, but unused weight room. Having the weight room virtually empty have me time to experiment with free weights.

I still remember my first morning at the gym - I tried 95 pounds on the bench press, but it got stuck on my chest after a few reps. I was a skinny, scrawny, cross country runner with no muscle at all.

During that time I met professor Michael Gilbertson, who became my mentor. He was a bodybuilder and English professor in his thirties. He took the time to teach me about how to lift.

After 8 months in the gym I was a new man. People - including Dr. Gilbertson - were asking me if I took steroids. I was asked to teach a course at the college on kineseology and weight training applications for non-strength sports. And I had a new found confidence.

I continued to lift hard and heavy until I entered the US Army in 1991. Then life intervened. I fell in love, was stationed on the east coast, and remained there until 1996.

It wasn't until 1997, when I returned to Wisconsin, that I began lifting again. I found that at my seasoned age, I was now much more naturally strong.

I trained like a bear at this time, and set many personal records. I was repping on the bench with 365, and my max was about 425. My squat max was close to 500, and I could overhead press 225 for reps.

It was at this time that I really began to look at bodybuilding from a scientific lens. I was always a typical lifter - buying the latest supplements and bodybuilding magazines. But I noticed something funny...I was making huge gains doing two things that bodybuilding magazines said I shouldn't: eating dirty and training less then an hour at a time.

This began my journey away from conventional bodybuilding, and my "waking up."

I have spent most of my life studying bodybuilding. Though I have to admit, I've never really cared for supplements, and am naive about all the modern magic pills.

Away from the gym, I am a family man with 2 wonderful daughters. I love my life and my wife, and live far away from the city.

Academically I have studied mathematics and astrophysics at New Mexico Tech. Professionally I have been in sales for BMW/Acura, owned my own computer/web design business, and most recently been in occupational health. (I've performed for then 30,000 hearing tests, if you can believe that)

Muscle and Brawn is my baby; my attempt to take my hobby and mesh it with my love of the Internet.

Oh, and one last thing...call it a personality flaw. I've been in the iron game so long that when I smell a rat, it's hard not to pounce. I've seen the snake oil salesmen at the door far too many times. And I've seen the hacks pretending to be gurus one too many times.

If I fall off the rails occasionally, forgive me. I am not a guru, nor am I trying to sell you magic pills or an uber program. I don't believe in fads; I believe in hard - and smart - work. And I believe in common sense.